Lost
by muaaimoi
Summary: In which History is a long, long time to miss each other. A few almost's that could have been a lot further back than you think. S/P love as always  R&R


**Lost**

_**by: muaaimoi**_

_**Summary: In which History is a long, long time to miss each other.**_

_**1.**_

She is their best huntress.

It's just as well, the men leave in chase of game and don't come back for many moons. As a woman she is not to accompany them. Pen catches rabbits and sparrows and their women remain fed, healthy and strong. Berry's and the other gatherings the women do keep them alive well enough, but meat fortifies them. Keeps the sickness away.

Her ability to provide makes her a desirable mate, men want their children to grow strong.

She refuses all the males in their tribe at first. She is special, great. She wants someone to match her, to challenge her. She never finds one. And it isn't until she's seen many, many more moons that she gives in. It doesn't make her happy.

And the child in her womb takes her life as she gives it his.

It's not dying that makes her feel lonely.

x

He isn't very good at hunting, not with arrows or stones.

But that doesn't keep him from providing his tribe with more meat than anyone else. At least, anyone but the one the elders call Pen.

He likes setting traps, the larger, the better. And when he figures out how to make the meat last for many moons there isn't an eligible woman who would refuse him. But he refuses them. His time is better spent feeding his village after all. He sires with a few women that agree, but he doesn't want a mate.

Privately, he feels none are worthy of him.

When he dies, he's too young. He's been wounded trapping a bear. His only consolation as the blood bleeds out of him is that he has beaten his rival at last. Surely Pen never caught a bear.

He does not know what happens when he dies, maybe he will go where Pen went. Surely he was impressive? He was a very good rival, after all. The least he should get is a meeting face to face...

**2.**

He's one of the best warriors of Greece.

Provided he's given a sword.

Sword less is he one of their brighter scholars, Pythagoras is some one he admires. And this prompts him to explore the world. He goes from temple to temple, since all roads lead to Greece it only makes sense that Greece leads to all roads. And if, after a while of his wandering, he can't quite shake the notion that he is searching for something, foolishness that it is... Well, no one else need know he's gone rather mad.

It's this thought that leads him to a tavern, though he usually prefers better company than that of drunks. An error of judgement leaves his sword and current travelling bag at the temple he is residing in. He really needs something a bit stronger than wine at the moment.

And having only enough gold for a few drinks doesn't save him from a savage band of thieves. He barely has time to realize that he had searched for something after all, before he's dead and gone.

x

She is an acolyte of Dionysus. And unlike most of her brethren, she doesn't bother to hide it. It helps that she's an actress, she supposes, though her skill with a sword isn't feigned. Few can match her worship of wine.

She's working off a night of thorough worship and a hang over when she walks by the sight of some people lugging a body of the road. All he gets is the modestly of a white veil. Poor stranger, anyone in town would have warned him off the road, but those in the temple were far too removed from reality to bother with the locals.

They were taking him back to the temple.

One of the men carrying him fumbles, and an inconvenient wind blows most of the sheet off him.

Penelope is utterly stunned by the sight of him. The ragged wound at his throat barely register against the vision of his face. Grey rimmed blue eyes unseeing in death. The sight haunts her, and no amount of wine ever manages to make her forget. Eventually she drinks herself to death. It's a fitting end.

**3.**

She loves fighting.

It's not just a shield maidens calling, there is a satisfaction in bringing down those who would be happy in a world that has wronged her. No matter who she bests she will always be less because she is a woman. She is like a storm, fury and the wrath of the very gods. There are none who can oppose her, be they bigger or stronger, she is always swifter, and she has sent many a fine warrior ahead to Valhalla.

Most having sought her hand in marriage. She will never wed some one beneath her. Death first, always.

When it comes, she is a legend, feared far and wide for her fury. An entire field strewn with the dead, most by her hand. She is severely wounded, but she fights like a woman possessed until her last dying breath. It is not a finishing blow that does her in, just a loss of blood from all her wounds. Her only regret is having never been bested.

x

He is simply a humble monk in the order. Or he would be, if he was humble. He saw no need to be, not when he was as intelligent as he was. Languages fall at his feet within days, he can quote scripture perfectly from the briefest glance. He was a true Jewel of his Abby, and he knew it too.

Despite his annoyance at the inaccuracy of religion.

He learns to keep his opinions to himself. He liked being a Monk, for the solitude, the books. Cleaning up the dead was easily the biggest downside, but that only happened when there was a battle, and he had never seen another.

He pauses by one of the female warriors, and it's not just his curiosity at seeing a female fight. He had observed the battle, planning what countermeasures he could, should they lose. He didn't like the thought of being slaughtered, much less becoming a slave.

The female at his feet had killed the most of is Abbey's protectors. He should find it galling, with her being a woman and all.

It isn't.

She was twice the warrior any of them were. And she would have killed them all, if not for their sheer number. He gives her the best burial. It takes some doing to hide it from the others, but he thinks it's worth it. It's a quiet glade, surrounded by flowers in the spring. It's one of his favorite places to be.

He visits her grave every day. The years drag on.

And on the last day, when his old bones can't carry him to her, he passes on. All the while wishing he had at least known her name.

**4.**

The war tears her country asunder. And they say there are places worse off. Penelope can't picture it. Doesn't want to. She carries her father's gun where ever she goes. War makes desperate beasts out of men, and she never wants to meet one of them in the dark.

It always feels like it's dark, the clouds of black smoke from the bombs block the sun. It's all she can do to hunt some wild life, what little of it survives, can she even really call it hunting? She finds them dead more often than not. She's lucky if the meat hasn't begun to rot.

It's on another foray into the woods that she runs into him, they are at a stalemate, with her gun trained on him and his at her. She's unprepared for the wave of emotion she feels when she meets his eyes, she's never seen the like.

x

He doesn't like being a soldier.

He doesn't, not at he's had no choice in the matter, but that's how drafts work. He's utterly useless without a gun. At least with one he doesn't waste ammo, unlike his fellows. He shoots to kill, and it only ever takes one bullet. They ship him off to some country far too close to Germany. Somewhere between having their camp seized and escaping out of one of the many routes he'd planned, he forgets which one it is. He hasn't escaped unscathed after all.

He can't describe the pain in his temples, but he somehow manages to hide in the woods. Makes it to a reasonable distance of a village. He allows himself to become cautiously optimistic. He might just make it after all.

A noise startles him, and he draws his gun before he can think twice about it. Quite a feat considering his mind. He finds it harder to think once he meets her eyes. There is a woman leveling a gun at him, and he finds he couldn't care less. Not in the face of what he feels at the ever green of her eyes.

x

Over head they never see the hanger that drops the bomb. The noxious gas spews forth, slowly killing all in its wake. They stagger forward, guns dropping and cloth struggling uselessly to give them clean air. At least this time, they die together.

**5.**

Blue eyes widen at the vision the woman makes before him. He runs a quick inventory over every attractive woman he's ever seen. Another of every blonde. One last mental check to everyone remotely feminine classifies the blonde girl before him as some one he has never seen before.

So he can't fathom the familiarity of her. The part of him screaming that he knows her, that she important, that she matters to him in a way no one else does. In a way no one else ever will.

Sheldon wants a brain scan. He has never suffered from more illogical feelings in his life, nor such strong ones. His brain ceases to function when he meets her eyes. He's completely lost to the green of them. He can barely process the blinding joy of his soul.

_Finally._

x

Penny turns at the feel of some ones gaze burning a hole in her. She's never felt such an intense stare in her life. And Penny is some one who has long been used to being looked at.

She barely manages to note that it's two guys, one short, kind of geeky. The other is tall, and her mind goes absolutely blank when she meets his eyes. Blue, blue, blue. One of Penny's favorite things in the world has always been the sky, she's never expected to find the perfect shade of it on a guy. She would have been pickier about the ones she had dated if she had known she could.

Penny is utterly taken aback by the swelling of feeling in her chest. Like somethings slotting into place. A piece of her that had remained elusive her entire life but that's finally been found.

Now she can be whole.

_Complete._

**_xXx_**

**_Ah, it can take all of eternity, but your soul will always know... Sometimes I'm so sickeningly romantic I sort of disgust myself. I truly appreciate all comments and feedback. So thank you, the thoughtful understanding souls who review. It means the world to me!_**


End file.
